asterisk users - Jan 2006 - Help Connecting server districts

I am working on a project to unite several local school districts.  We will 
have 14 different districts, every district would have their own asterisk box 
on location.  We all have fiber lines running to a central location at our 
isd. This provides connectivity to all the districts. 1. would it be wiser to 
install a asterisk box at the central location of the ISD and have all 
asterisk boxes register with that? or would it be better to create a mesh-
network of registrations. If so can this be acomplished easily using iax or 
dundi? What would be the best way to link all of these boxes together so that 
from any location they can call each other using simple extenion headers such 
as _10xxx for district 1, and _11xxx for distrct two and make that conssistant?

Thanks

Johnathan Falk
Network Administrator
Clinton Community Schools

> I am working on a project to unite several local school districts.  We will
> have 14 different districts, every district would have their own asterisk
box
> on location.  We all have fiber lines running to a central location at our 
> isd. This provides connectivity to all the districts. 
> 1. would it be wiser to install a asterisk box at the central location 
> of the ISD and have all asterisk boxes register with that? 
One asterisk box at each district/school would be wiser, keeping local
sip to sip calls on the LAN, and local community calls on local pstn
facilities.

There is no real need to "register" one asterisk to another. Simply
define
a single entry in iax.conf using a type=user, and an assoicated entry in
the receiving * box with type=peer. That will minimize the register keep-
a-live packets, etc. (That assumes your fiber network is very stable in
terms of uptime.)
> or would it be better to create a mesh-network of registrations. 
Create a mesh network without the registrations (as noted above). The amount
of traffic between districts is likely to be rather low given that a large
percentage of communications is likely centered are each districts 
"community of interest". (eg, local calls, room to office calls, etc.)
> If so can this be acomplished easily using iax or dundi? 
Yes, with iax very simple. No need for dundi in this case.
> What would be the best way to link all of these boxes together so that 
> from any location they can call each other using simple extenion headers 
> such as _10xxx for district 1, and _11xxx for distrct two and make that 
> conssistant?
 
Personally, I'd look at setting up your dialplan in such a way as to use
real 7-digit or 10-digit telephone numbers in all cases. If school district
#8 has local telephone number like 312-456-1000 (assuming no DID numbers),
then use something like that in each remote school district's asterisk
dialplan. So, if someone in district #12 dials 312-456-1000, the dialplan
determines whether to send that call via iax to district #8 or overflow
onto the pstn network. If you already have an extension number scheme in
each school, the above can be augmented with something like 312-456-1xxx
(even though they aren't DID's right now).

I would agree with all but a few issue:

I would incoparate dundi, After using it I have fallen in love with it
for distributed applications such as this. It makes configuration at
first a bit steeper but it picks up monentum as your deploy. With Dundi
you basicaly broadcast what extensions or numbers are served by your
machine and using a set of keys (which negats having to configure a perr
for every machine to create a mesh netowrk)

There is no need to connect to the Public Dundi Peering fabric unless
you want to. You can run your own 'private' Dundi  peers.

Let me know if you need any help..
 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com 
> [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of 
> Rich Adamson
> Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2006 8:30 AM
> To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
> Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Help Connecting server districts
> 
> 
> > I am working on a project to unite several local school 
> districts.  We 
> > will have 14 different districts, every district would have 
> their own 
> > asterisk box on location.  We all have fiber lines running to a 
> > central location at our isd. This provides connectivity to 
> all the districts.
> > 1. would it be wiser to install a asterisk box at the 
> central location 
> > of the ISD and have all asterisk boxes register with that?
> 
> One asterisk box at each district/school would be wiser, 
> keeping local sip to sip calls on the LAN, and local 
> community calls on local pstn facilities.
> 
> There is no real need to "register" one asterisk to another. 
> Simply define a single entry in iax.conf using a type=user, 
> and an assoicated entry in the receiving * box with 
> type=peer. That will minimize the register keep- a-live 
> packets, etc. (That assumes your fiber network is very stable 
> in terms of uptime.)
> 
> > or would it be better to create a mesh-network of registrations. 
> 
> Create a mesh network without the registrations (as noted 
> above). The amount of traffic between districts is likely to 
> be rather low given that a large percentage of communications 
> is likely centered are each districts "community of 
> interest". (eg, local calls, room to office calls, etc.)
> 
> > If so can this be acomplished easily using iax or dundi? 
> 
> Yes, with iax very simple. No need for dundi in this case.
> 
> > What would be the best way to link all of these boxes 
> together so that 
> > from any location they can call each other using simple extenion 
> > headers such as _10xxx for district 1, and _11xxx for 
> distrct two and 
> > make that conssistant?
>  
> Personally, I'd look at setting up your dialplan in such a 
> way as to use real 7-digit or 10-digit telephone numbers in 
> all cases. If school district
> #8 has local telephone number like 312-456-1000 (assuming no 
> DID numbers), then use something like that in each remote 
> school district's asterisk dialplan. So, if someone in 
> district #12 dials 312-456-1000, the dialplan determines 
> whether to send that call via iax to district #8 or overflow 
> onto the pstn network. If you already have an extension 
> number scheme in each school, the above can be augmented with 
> something like 312-456-1xxx (even though they aren't DID's right
now).
> 
> 
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Alexander Lopez wrote:
> I would incoparate dundi, After using it I have fallen in love with it
> for distributed applications such as this. It makes configuration at
> first a bit steeper but it picks up monentum as your deploy. With Dundi
> you basicaly broadcast what extensions or numbers are served by your
> machine and using a set of keys (which negats having to configure a perr
> for every machine to create a mesh netowrk)
Thanks for bringing this up Alexander :-)

He is right... a private DUNDi network is the perfect solution for this 
sort of thing. No central administration, no need to update servers to 
be aware of what routes the other servers offer, etc.